Slide maneuver

[beetle496]

Originally Posted by TheAmishStig

I wouldn't call it low risk...

How much of the 6e game mechanics have you picked up?

At Speed 4 with good tires but no bonuses for a Driver, do you not start each turn with a three or four or five Control tokes? What is the roll for a D1 at Speed 4, and could one even loose two control tokens?

I agree that going Out of Control at an inopportune time is devastating. I just don’t see D1 maneuvers being much of an issue. (Sure, D1 after D4 is terrible, but not what I am talking about.)

[Aleph]

Originally Posted by beetle496

At Speed 4 with good tires but no bonuses for a Driver, do you not start each turn with a three or four or five Control tokes? What is the roll for a D1 at Speed 4, and could one even loose two control tokens?

I agree that going Out of Control at an inopportune time is devastating. I just don’t see D1 maneuvers being much of an issue. (Sure, D1 after D4 is terrible, but not what I am talking about.)

At Speed 4, with no tire damage and modifiers from equipment or crew, you would start with 4 Control.

At Speed 4, you roll 4 yellow dice, plus the dice for the difficulty of the maneuver. (D0 for a slide, a D1 turn would be a green die added). So a Slide at Speed 4 is 4 dice, each yellow die has a 2/6 chance of rolling a skid. It is possible to go out of control in a single slide at Speed 4.

[HeatDeath]

Originally Posted by Aleph

At Speed 4, with no tire damage and modifiers from equipment or crew, you would start with 4 Control.

At Speed 4, you roll 4 yellow dice, plus the dice for the difficulty of the maneuver. (D0 for a slide, a D1 turn would be a green die added). So a Slide at Speed 4 is 4 dice, each yellow die has a 2/6 chance of rolling a skid. It is possible to go out of control in a single slide at Speed 4.

Ah, but is it /likely/?

Therein lies the game.

[Aleph]

Originally Posted by HeatDeath

Ah, but is it /likely/?

Therein lies the game.

For all four to be skids? No, I think it's just over a 1% chance.

But the question asked was is it even possible lose two control tokens from the roll. At a 33% chance per die for a skid, four is possible, though unlikely, but two is definitely in the realm of possibility, and not that unlikely.

[TheAmishStig]

Originally Posted by beetle496

How much of the 6e game mechanics have you picked up?

Enough that had I been able to make arrangements on my end, I would have answered the "We need MIBs!" call for PAX Unplugged with no reservations about offering to work the CW6 demo tables. Let's not go down the road of "I disagree with you, therefore my credibility is suspect", please. As Jimmie pointed out, being put out of control by a single D0 at Speed 4 and 7+ tires isn't likely. But the scenario was "brake by 1 and slide x2 in lieu of brake by 2"...meaning 2 rolls of 4Y each.

On 8 Yellow and starting with 4 Control Tokens, AnyDice puts the odds at:

• 1 or more Skids: 96.10%
• 2 or more Skids: 80.49%
• 3 or more Skids: 53.18%
• 4 or more Skids: 25.85% [Out of Control]
• 5 or more Skids: 8.79%
• 6 or more Skids: 1.97%
• 7 or more Skids: 0.26%
• 8 Shields: 0.02%
• Instant KO: Not Possible

To see it for yourself, switch it to "At Least" mode and input the following (or to see "exactly X Skids", leave it in Normal mode):

output 4d{0,0,0,0,1,1} + 4d{0,0,0,0,1,1}

An over-25% likelihood that the best thing that will happen to you is going out of control, and an over-50% likelihood of putting giant neon "Blast Me" and "Nudge Me" signs on your roof...begging an opportunistic opponent to hit you with a [Blast] weapon or their car, putting you Out of Control anyway...is not what I would call "low risk".

At Speed 2, the additional control tokens drops those likelihoods to under 2% and under 10%, respectively, so at that point go for it: Instead of hard braking to Speed 1, drop to Speed 2 and shake what your OEM gave ya. Speed 3 is a situational toss-up at under 10% and just over 25% likelihoods, respectively.

Originally Posted by Aleph

For all four to be skids? No, I think it's just over a 1% chance.

You're good. Anydice says 1.23% chance of 4 skids on a roll of 4Y.

[beetle496]

I appreciate the odds breakdown! It is interesting to me how D0 is no problem with 5e (and before) but actually a gamble with 6e! If the 1st roll goes south, obviously don’t follow with a 2nd swerve. In two player, if you have one more control than your speed, it is zero risk. When control == speed, it is very low risk (and, less risky the faster you are going).

My take away is that, if you were planning to go straight your whole turn anyway, do a single slide/drift/swerve instead. It is pretty much win/win. Do a second one if the roll goes well. You are giving up half a car length for one or two ace tokens.

[Magesmiley]

There's another aspect to remember also - control markers are gained before speed changes. So you'll be getting them for your old speed.

[TheAmishStig]

Originally Posted by beetle496

I appreciate the odds breakdown! It is interesting to me how D0 is no problem with 5e (and before) but actually a gamble with 6e! If the 1st roll goes south, obviously don’t follow with a 2nd swerve. In two player, if you have one more control than your speed, it is zero risk. When control == speed, it is very low risk (and, less risky the faster you are going).

My take aways is that, if you were planning to go straight your whole turn anyway, do a single slide/drift/swerve instead. It is pretty much win/win. Do a second one if the roll goes well. You are giving up half a car length for one or two ace tokens.

Combinatorics is fascinating, but is still a bit of a black art that I don't fully have my head around...mainly things like calculating the odds for multiple 'this does stuff' faces that all do different things. I'd have to spend a while banging my head off it to wrap my head around how those calculations work [let alone how and when to use them...]

The more I poke around under the hood the more they did a really, really good job with encouraging more action every turn. Compared to 4E when you make a maneuver is less of a consideration [as it's not like you can only make 1 maneuver over the course of 3 moves], yet they found a way to keep the risk-reward of "Drive like a maniac too often, and you're going to have a bad time".

One thing that really jumped out at me when I got to play: including the Speed in control rolls gives an incentive to 'rip the band-aid off' rather than nibbling away with multiple smaller turns.

x4 D1 turns at Speed 3 is 12 Yellow + 4 Green dice...whereas x1 D4 turn at speed 3 is 4 yellow [3 from speed, 1 from the D2 slice], 1 green, 1 red, and 1 white.

If my math is right, that means someone pulling x4 D1 turns can at Speed 3 can expect a loss of 4 2/3 control and 1 1/3 tires, while someone pulling x1 D4 turn at Speed 3 can expect a loss of 2.5 control and 1 tire.

Speaking of...given that it's close to 2am, it'd be nice if someone checks my work. Here's my AnyDice code for it:

output 12d{0,0,0,0,1,1} + 4d{0,0,0,0,0,1} named "Control Loss, 4xD1"
output 12d{0,0,0,0,0,0} + 4d{0,0,0,0,1,1} named "Tire Loss, 4xD1"

output 4d{0,0,0,0,1,1} + 1d{0,0,0,0,0,1} + 1d{0,0,0,1,1,1} + 1d{0,0,0,0,1,2} named "Control Loss, 1xD4"
output 4d{0,0,0,0,0,0} + 1d{0,0,0,0,1,1} + 1d{0,0,0,0,0,1} + 1d{0,0,0,0,1,2} named "Tire Loss, 1xD4"

[beetle496]

Thanks Andy for that analysis! Agreed, 16d v 7d is another no-brainer, our second One True Way achievement in just two days!

I had noticed in watching videos that the 90° turn seemed popular. In CWC, thats a D6; in 6e a D4. OTOH, that White die is a killer.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by TheAmishStig

Combinatorics is fascinating, but is still a bit of a black art that I don't fully have my head around...mainly things like calculating the odds for multiple 'this does stuff' faces that all do different things. I'd have to spend a while banging my head off it to wrap my head around how those calculations work [let alone how and when to use them...]

Sam and Randy have a really good grasp of things and I get called in fairly often to triple-check their work. An example from this week: "If you have a weapon with this mixture of dice and two re-rolls, how much damage would you expect it to do on average?" Which led to a discussion of dependent vs. independent events, expected value, and so on. Reasonably easy concepts to explain, but applying them is the fun part.